Reasons To Study
by LuMaria
Summary: Ron Weasley hated to see girls cry.


**Title: Reasons to Study  
Author: LuMaria  
Pairing: Ron/Pansy  
Rating: T (PG-13)  
Author's notes: This was written for the 2004 Ron Ficathon, and I wrote it for Lizabethy. I finally decided to upload it just for kicks, so here it is. The title was simply a random title thrown out by my beta, and has nothing to do with the story.

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Ron Weasley hated to see girls cry. It wasn't that he found the sight of them repellant, not by any means. He hated how awkward he was when it came to comforting them, hated how he completely lacked the ability to soothe them. He knew this from all the times he'd seen Hermione cry in their seven years of friendship. Therefore, on a cloudy day in April, when Ron was strolling about the Hogwarts grounds, he was dismayed to hear loud sniffling coming from behind a tree at the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

His first instinct, which was to run away from the situation like a coward, didn't seem the option to take. After all, he had a reputation as a friend of Harry Potter's, didn't he? Harry'd never run from a scary situation. So, with a loud sigh, he made his way to the large tree just ahead of him.

"Er…" he began awkwardly, as he usually did, especially around the fairer sex. "D'you…need…help?"

Perhaps Ron assumed the person crying would have a small, meek voice full of sorrow and regret and woe such as the world had never seen. Perhaps he assumed he would be saving a damsel in distress of sorts. Perhaps that's why he nearly ran again when he heard the hoarse, annoyed voice that greeted him.

"Go away, Weasley, you great ugly oaf."

Oh. Ron knew that voice. He hated that annoying voice, and the girl, if you could call her a girl, that the voice belonged to. Her suggestion about going away sounded like a damn good one now. However, the moment he turned to leave, Pansy sniffled so loudly that a flock of birds flew out of the tree she was hiding behind.

Knowing that he'd regret it if he turned around, but feeling he'd regret it more if he didn't, he made his way back to the tree and walked around to face her.

"What are you—I said go away!" Pansy shrieked, wiping her ugly pug nose on the sleeve of her robes. Her eyes were red rimmed and puffy, her lips swollen, and Ron thought she was perhaps the ugliest sight he'd ever seen. That was saying something, as he'd stared down an acromantula.

"Are you all right?" Ron questioned, figuring that stepping on her foot wouldn't be very kind, and therefore deciding against it.

"I'll be better when you remove your freckled, gangly arse from my line of vision."

"Fine!" Ron yelled, throwing his arms up in exaggerated defeat. "I'll go. You Slytherins are all so annoying, I don't know what on earth possessed me to come back and—"

"He won't marry me."

Ron blinked several times. "What?" he asked after a long pause in which he shifted from foot to foot and then stepped toward her tentatively.

"Draco. He won't marry me. He's been promising to marry me after we left school for ages, and now he's saying he doesn't want to marry me. He's changed his mind." Pansy snorted, a thoroughly disgusting sound after having been crying so much.

"That's…" Ron looked around, hoping to find the right thing to say in the clouds, on a tree branch, anywhere. "Why do you even like him?" He asked suddenly. "He's a git."

"Why do I like him?" Pansy glared up at him from the tree stump she was sitting on. "Are you mad? He's rich, handsome, pureblood, powerful, great in bed..."

"Okay, forget I asked," he interrupted, making a sour face. "You're making me sick."

"Why do you ask if you don't want to know?" Pansy sneered at him through strands of limp brown hair and straightened her robes. "Why are you even here? Where are the other two parts of your disgusting trio? Off in a closet, snogging?"

"I don't know where they are. They're Head Boy and Girl, they could be anywhere," Ron snapped, angry that Pansy was closer to the truth than she even thought.

"Well, they could be, but they aren't," she said almost gleefully as she stood. "Poor little Weasley, so lost and alone without Potter's boots to lick."

Ron clenched his fists. "Poor Parkinson, still an ugly, unloved, pug-nosed bitch."

Pansy plunged a hand into her robes, and Ron reached into his own robes and gripped his wand. She was a Slytherin, after all, and he knew he had to protect himself from whichever hex she was likely about to throw at him. He pulled out the wand and aimed it at her nose just as she produced a silver flask and brought it up to her lips.

"Oh, put that silly thing down," she said irritably. "What, you gonna hex me for drinking?"

"Oh. Er…sorry." Ron dropped his arm to his side, unwilling to pocket his wand again lest he need it later. He watched her take several sips before making a loud, disgusted noise, and she raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"Oh, sorry, Weasley. How rude of me. Want some? I'm willing to share." She waved the container in his general direction and he shook his head violently. "Your loss."

"You shouldn't drink," he muttered.

She snorted again. "Didn't I ask you to leave? I don't need a morality lecture from anyone, least of all you."

"Yes, fine, I'm going." He rolled his eyes and stomped past her, muttering about drunken bints and Slytherin rudeness and everything else that annoyed him.

"Oh, come on, Weasley, don't be such a bloody baby! OW!"

Ron sighed and closed his eyes, trying not to care about the thud he'd just heard. _No_, he thought, _no. I am not going back there._

"Ow," Pansy whimpered pitifully from somewhere behind him.

_I'm not turning around_, he thought as he turned around. Pansy was sitting on the ground, clutching her ankle with her eyes squeezed shut, breathing shallowly.

"What, did you trip?" he asked casually, crossing his arms across his chest.

"No, I just thought it was such a lovely day," she began through gritted teeth, "that I'd purposely catch my toe on a tree root and do something horrid to my ankle—ow!" Her skin began to pale, and she bit her bottom lip so hard that Ron could see blood welling up on it.

It was truly strange for Ron to watch her suffering in (near) silence, when all the other Slytherins he knew milked their injuries for all the sympathy it could get them. "Let me help," he sighed, but the moment he reached her and put a hand on her shoulder, she recoiled.

"No! Get away from me, don't touch me!"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, why are you so stubborn? If you're in pain—"

"I won't have Draco and everyone else that matters thinking I was having some sort of illicit encounter out here with…with a _Weasley_." She spat the last word out in disgust. "And I don't want you touching me." She managed to stand, but wobbled unsteadily and fell back on her bottom.

"You're being stupid," Ron barked, ignoring the heat rising in his face. "It'll take you all night to make it back to the castle, wobbling about like that."

"Then I'll take all night," she said with a pained grimace, managing to stand again. She held both arms out for balance and hopped twice, nearly toppling again.

"There's no sense in even trying to make you see reason," Ron groaned, and rushed forward to catch her before she fell on her face. Her eyes grew wide and she began to struggle against him, to no avail. Before she could even speak, Ron hoisted her over his shoulder like a knapsack.

"Put me down!" she shrieked, beating at his back with her fists. "I hate you! Let me alone, put me DOWN! PUT ME DOWN, you MISERABLE, POOR, UGLY—"

"Shut up, or I'll have to hit you with a muting charm."

Nearly half an hour and a hundred screamed insults later, Pansy and Ron arrived at the infirmary. Ron dumped her unceremoniously onto the nearest bed, and Madame Pomfrey rushed up immediately. "What's wrong with you, Miss Parkinson?"

Ron laughed mirthlessly. "What isn't?"

"Oh, grow up, Weasley!"

"Eat dung!"

"Speaking of dung, your mother—"

"Leave my mother out of it, Parkinson"

"WHY DON'T YOU JUST GO AWAY?"

"I'VE BEEN WONDERING THE SAME ABOUT YOU FOR YEARS!"

"THAT IS ENOUGH!" Madame Pomfrey shouted over them, ending their argument. "Miss Parkinson, I'll need to look at your foot, but I daresay that if you're able to take part in such a childish argument, it mustn't hurt that badly! As for you, Mr. Weasley, you'll need to either leave or be quiet!"

"Fine, I'm going!" Ron yelled, turning and storming toward the infirmary door, cursing almost everything and everyone he could think of. He was just about to open the door when he heard Pansy speak in a much lower tone than before.

"Weasley."

Ron stopped and lowered his head, shaking it and not believing his rotten luck. Why did HE have to be the one that found her behind that tree? He'd be taking no more walks around the grounds anymore, that was for sure. "What. is. it."

"I hate you and thank you," she said quickly. He spun and stared at her when he realised what she'd said. She lay back on the bed and turned to face him.

"What? Are you…what?" He shook his head. "An apology? To a WEASLEY? From a SLYTHERIN?"

"What can I say," she drawled with a smirk, apparently feeling the effects of whatever potion Pomfrey had just made her drink. "I'm quite the multi-faceted individual."

"Er…right." Ron wasn't sure whether to laugh or glare at her, so he settled on a mixture of both. "You're maddening, you know."

"Oh, Weasley. You have _NO_ idea."


End file.
